Digital communications require error detection and correction capabilities in order to communicate over imperfect and/or noisy channels. For instance, channel noise may introduce errors during transmission of a message from a source to a receiver. Error detection techniques detect such errors, while error correction techniques enable the original message to be reconstructed free of the errors. These capabilities become increasingly important as communication speed and bandwidth requirements increase.
Many error detection and correction techniques rely on the transmission of redundant data, such as error correcting codes (ECCs) and cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs), with a message. The receiver uses the redundant data to check consistency of the delivered message, and to recover data determined to be corrupted. The amount of redundant data that is needed to detect and correct errors often depends on the channel noise that is present, which may vary over time due to environmental changes (e.g., rain, temperature, cloud cover, presence of other devices, and the like).